Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 2 December 1939, Page 6

Readers Write

i Our requests to “Fairplay” for* chapter and verse have met with the? alleged Scottish trick of answering aj question by asking j A CHALLENGE, half-a-dozen more. | Further, insulting! innuendo is made regarding the prices* for meat, wool and butter. We have| yet to hear the farmer or farmers’ or--i ganisation deny that the British Gov- ? ernment’s payments for the above? goods are generous. i Our troubles are not of overseas? manufacture, but are “made in N.Z.”| The “niggers in the woodpile” are f I ever-rising costs, and the gradual, but ? ever-widening policy of socialisation. | I Politics are of little interest to the ? average farmer. What does concern? him is his net income, and his free-i dom. Under the present policy, both? are being whittled away, with the in-| evitable result that farming, the life- i blood of our little country, is rapidly | becoming a depressed industry. f After three years of alleged guar-1 anteed prices we are down 100,000 1 milking cows, something quite unique | in the history of our country, and the i ! tragedy of it is that our kinsfolk in | I Britain are rationed to 4oz. of butter' and 4oz. of bacon per week —just one quarter of our family’s consumption. What on earth does “Fairplay” mean when he refers to “over-production”?

Regarding London and New Zealand prices of New Zealand butter: it should be obvious to anyone that butter fresh from the factoi’y is worth more than butter held in store for six months, as much of our butter marketed in London is. It is to be hoped that this will be accepted as a “sensible reason.”

Your correspondent thinks that the two political parties here are “politically honest” in their beliefs. But what does the present Government believe—one thing one day and some-

thing else the next? We were told that there was “nothing to fear,” that “nobody would be hurt,” that “the payment to the farmer would be measured by the same tape as is used to measure the payment of others who render equal service.” We have the Prime Minister’s pledge that “Labour would provide increasing standards of life to all those engaged in the work of increasing production.” If “Fairplay” is honest in his desire for information, let him clip that last paragraph and show it to the grazier, the dairy farmer, the orchardist, the manufacturer, the importer (if he can find one), the merchant, the retailer, the shop assistant, the P.W.D. employee, the superannuitant, and the pensioner. The information derived may not be encyclopaedic, but it will certainly be to the point.-. In conclusion, the old saying goes:

“Fairplay is bonny play,” so if “Fairplay” is sincere in his nom-de-plume, let him support his assertions regarding the £2,000,000 “baby,” and the dairy farmers’ “special favour.” ~ “MUM AND DAD.”